


it’s kinda like a running joke / that’s really not funny

by thalialunacy



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, UST, Unresolved Sexual Tension, growing as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:24:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thalialunacy/pseuds/thalialunacy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is kind of a dick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it’s kinda like a running joke / that’s really not funny

**Author's Note:**

> **Rating** : R for language.  
>  **Genre** : Uh, character study ficlet of UST and dickishness.  
>  **Warnings** : Emphasis on the 'U' in UST, guys. Basically, I needed to work something out, and Chris was a willing conduit. You know, in my head.  
>  **Dedication** : For norfolkdumpling, who is miraculously okay with the fact that I never, ever know what to say. ♥  
>  **Notes** : Title & cut text from an '[Dilate](https://www.box.com/s/apkk7v9l5lczd44xk2nf)' by Ani Difranco. And I have no idea of the status of ZQs grandparents; apologies to the man himself.

Chris is kind of shit at taking care of other people. His excuse is that he’s too in his head, too busy or whatever, but really he’s just… kind of a dick. Comforting doesn’t come naturally to him. Maybe he can blame his parents. Maybe he can blame his job. Or maybe he was just built that way, like he’d come with blue eyes and a fervent dislike of olives.

But he’s at a point in his life where he can admit it, can fake it a little if he has to, and is maybe thinking about working on it. Only in theory, understand.

At least, in theory until Thursday.

\---

“I just don’t fucking get it,” he says into the phone on Wednesday, or at least theoretically into the phone, which is tucked awkwardly under his chin—he always thinks of 1980s secretaries and their little shoulder-phone-holder-thingies at times like this; what they’d do with cell phones he has no idea—while he rolls meatballs out of ground spiced beef. He likes the way it sticks to his hands. "Grandparents die, that's what they do. They're old and it's probably their time, for fuck's sake. I was practically happy when mine died."

Then he notices the silence on the other end of the line. "Zach?"

There's a cough. "Yeah, I hear you. It makes sense." Then there's a rustle, and a bark. "Listen, I gotta go."

Chris's gut curtsies in that way it does when he knows he's fucked up but he's pretty sure he can't fix it and he's not sure he's sorry. "Yeah, alright."

"Alright."

"Give my love to the pets. And J-Money." They both hate the nickname. Chris uses it as often as possible.

Zach snorts. "Yeah, of course."

\---

Thursdays are the new Fridays, right, and Chris knows this because shit, he went to college, but sometimes he gets so fucked up with time-zone-jumping and stupid shoots that go till 2am even when he’s in the same fucking time zone he went to kindergarten in—Sometimes he forgets, is all. Forgets until he hears the hooting of the young and beautiful (And when did he start thinking of himself separately? Since always, he thinks regrettably.) along Second and has to stop himself from asking what the hell they’re doing out on a school night.

But then he remembers he’s out on a school night, too, like the dumbass he doesn’t remember he is. Luckily his phone bleeps phlegmatically at him, the ringtone being something Simon put on there and God knows but he's pretty sure it's ancient Doctor Who. He absently looks at his watch while answering. "Isn't it dinner time?"

"They're at some… to-do, I don't really remember the details." Karl's voice is a bit tense, the vowels more condensed than normal. "Where are you?"

"Ah… Wandering the streets like an urchin."

"Alone?"

Chris would smart at this question, but Karl's got a point. "Yeah."

"Talked to Zach recently?"

"Yeah, yesterday. Why?"

"You should call him today."

"Dude, Karl, I know what the press says, but we're not that close. We don't talk every week, let alone—"

"His grandmother died yesterday."

Chris stops. Literally, stops where he's walking and just stares at the palm tree on his right. "No shit?"

"No shit."

Chris stares at the palm tree and thinks about yesterday, thinks about spatulas and—and exhales. "Fuck."

"Yeah."

"I kind of—"

"Kind of nothing, you need to call him."

"No, really, I pretty much told him…" He starts walking again, stuffing his free hand in his jeans pocket. "Yesterday I pretty much told him that I'm a dick."

"He already knows you're a dick."

"But he didn't know I was a dick about dying grandparents."

"You're kidding."

"Wish I was."

"You gave Zach you're 'they're dying anyways so we should be glad' speech while his grandmother was dying?"

"It appears I did."

"You _are_ a dick."

"Hey, I didn't know! You'd think he would've fucking said something, interrupted me—"

"That's not his MO."

"I know."

"I know you know. But you're a dick."

"Wow, thanks." He exhales. "But I deserve that."

"Too right."

"It's just that I— I have no fucking clue what to say."

"Sure you do."

"Okay, I do, but I also know that it'd be a lie. I'd be lying straight to his face. I do enough of that for work."

"Sometimes the lies have to be told. He needs to hear it right now. He knows you well enough to know how you actually feel."

"Yeah, he knows I don’t _care_.”

“Yes, you do.”

Chris grunts. “I kind of do. I care that it fucks him up.”

“Exactly.”

“No, no exactly, that’s all I’ve got. That’s it. Some shitty selfish care that he’s going to be fucked up about it. That doesn’t write the script, Karl.”

“Who says?”

It’s a snort this time. “I do? Reality does?”

“You think that’s not good enough? You think ‘I want you to not be fucked up’ doesn’t translate to ‘I care about you enough to not want you hurt’?”

“No, it’s different – it’s—“

“Nah, mate. It’s the same. You’re just seeing it different.”

“Differently,” Chris murmurs absently, his head pounding the pavement a mile a minute.

He hears Karl’s soft laugh. “Yeah, sure.”

And then there's a space. A quiet, an energy, an emptiness, an ache. In a parallel universe, in another lifetime, he would…

He doesn't fucking know what he'd do, but he'd do something.

Instead, he looks up at the nearly starless sky and tries to do the next best thing. "Thank you. For…" He has to clear his throat. It's like the word is stuck. "…helping. Thank you for helping me not be a dick and for—" Because once it's out the rest follow in a big rushing wave of sincerity and word vomit. "—putting up with me being a dick and—you know. Making me… better."

Karl doesn't answer for a moment, but then Chris hears him clearing his throat. "That."

"What?"

"That. That right there is how, at the end of the day, you, Chris Pine, are not a dick."

Chris is legitimately at a loss for words. "I—"

"Hold on to that," Karl commands gently.

And at the end of it, the only thing Chris can think of to say is: "…I'll try."

"Do. Please." The last bit is quiet, so quiet Chris fears the connection has been lost. "He'll want to hear from you."

"I know. I'll call him. I'll— call him." He swallows. "Talk to you later?"

"Yeah, course."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Chris stares at his phone for a minute. His head hurts, his stomach hurts, and he wants nothing more than to put the thing back in his pocket and pretend nothing had ever happened, that he'd never spun out on this emotionally slick superhighway.

He pushes two buttons, puts the phone up to his ear, and waits.

_**fin** _


End file.
